Jane Dueker was the first women to serve as chief legal counsel to the governor of Missouri.

But when she was appointed to the post in 2002 by Gov. Bob Holden, she had no idea she was setting such a precedent.

“I think the Business Journal was the first newspaper who called me and said, ‘Aren’t you the first female chief legal counsel?’, and I didn’t know, so I called up to Jeff City and found out,” Dueker said. “I remember it was pretty amazing when that hit me — and that wasn’t what it was about — but it was pretty interesting when I found out it was true.

“There are moments that you always remember, and that was clearly one of them for me.”

In 2003, Dueker also was appointed as Holden’s chief of staff, a position that involved managing Missouri’s $18.9 billion budget as well as overseeing board and commission appointments, judicial appointments, legislative affairs, media and communications, policy development and legal and constituent affairs.

In 2005, she returned to private practice at Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP, where she had been a partner before her appointment in Holden’s administration. Dueker, 47, is a registered lobbyist and now focuses her practice on helping companies and organizations navigate the governmental waters. Her client list includes Centene Corp., the Doe Run Co., Waste Management, Peabody Energy and American Traffic Solutions.

Dueker and her husband, Judge Joe Dueker, have two children and live in the same Chesterfield house where Dueker grew up.

Tell me about your current practice at Stinson.

I am a governmental attorney and consultant, and I work with individuals and companies and help them get through government, whether it be lobbying to get a statute changed, or working on an approval, or sometimes I have to file litigation, or sometimes it takes interacting with the government, whether it be talking to the executive branch or talking to an agency. I do federal, state and local, but mainly it’s trying to find a solution to a problem for an individual or a company that has issues with the government.

How did this niche in government come about?

In law school, if you would have asked me, I would not have said that I was interested in government. I always knew I was going to be a lawyer, so that’s kind of interesting and probably a little bit warped, actually, but the idea that I was going to be doing governmental didn’t come to me until after I graduated from law school. I went to work for the attorney general’s office, and that is what really sparked it. When now Gov. Jay Nixon became attorney general, I have to say he was probably my inspiration for getting into the political arena.

How so?

I was a brand new lawyer, when Nixon took over. I was technically hired by Bill Webster, who eventually went to prison. That’s a whole other story — the FBI lurking about my office when I first got there. I was very confused by that as a young lawyer. But when Nixon took over, what was great about him was that it didn’t matter how many years out of law school you were. If you wanted to take on a project, and you were willing to do it, then he allowed you to do it. I remember I worked on the Southwestern Bell rate case back then, and it was like a $400 million rate reduction that we got, and here I am a brand-new lawyer. I wasn’t even licensed. I was a new lawyer, and I got to be involved in cases that actually changed a lot of people’s lives ... people who didn’t even know what I was doing.

Was serving in the governor’s office as chief legal counsel and then chief of staff a role you’d ever envisioned for yourself?

Oh Lord, no. Before I went into the AG’s office, a friend of mine said, ‘I want to introduce you to this guy, Bob Holden. He’s running for treasurer, and he’s going to be governor some day.’ So I met Bob, and he said, ‘If I win treasurer and you’re in the AG’s office, I’ll make sure that you represent me,’ and sure enough he won, and sure enough, I went into the AG’s office, so I represented Bob when I was a brand-new lawyer and he was treasurer, and I got to know Bob, and I just really liked him and believed in what he was doing. I left the AG’s office and went to a private firm and still was doing governmental stuff and kept in touch with Bob, and sure enough he ran for governor. Then when I was seven months pregnant, and his general counsel was going on the bench, Bob was like, ‘Will you come and work for me?’ So it was interesting timing to say the least. I had a four-and-a-half-year-old son and was pregnant with my daughter, but I talked about it with my husband, and said, ‘This is sort of a chance of a lifetime.’ It was the most amazing experience I ever had, and the hardest by far.

What were the most memorable moments of your time in Jefferson City?

Making sure no kids got cut off of health care. To me that is still No. 1. They were going to cut the CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance) Program, but we were able to prevent it. Then when we almost shut down government — that was hard. The day we invaded Iraq. That night was very scary. All the governors got on a conference call with the federal government and they were telling us, ‘We’re going to go to war tomorrow, and we need to talk about what assets in your state may be impacted.’ That was a moment I’ll never forget.

What do you do when you’re not

working?

I have two phenomenal kids, and I love being with them. I don’t have a lot of room for other stuff — I have my family, and I have my work. I do have a few hobbies. I like to read, I love TV, I’m an avid sports fan. We have a pool in our yard, and I love to be home and have people over. I embroider, usually in the middle of the night. You hand me anything, and I’ll monogram it. I’m a lunatic on the iPad, that’s a real hobby of mine. I play on Twitter a lot. People think I’m crazy, but I enjoy that because I get to see a lot of opinions from a lot of different people. It’s very equalizing. I get to see competing opinions of people that I don’t agree with. I follow a lot of people that I don’t agree with because I don’t want to be out of touch.

Looking ahead, what’s on the horizon for you?

Nothing that I anticipate. I’ve kind of learned that. But I would be shocked if I’m not always tied to government because it is my passion.

What They Say

“Jane and I worked together at the Pasta House in Frontenac back around 1981. I was a 16-year-old waiter, and she was a 14-year-old bus girl, so we have been friends for 30 years. Jane has a terrific strategic mind that can quickly analyze and dissect the complexities of political issues.”

“Jane is both a quick study and a deep thinker. She’s fearless, funny and a fierce competitor. Her work ethic is prodigious, yet somehow she manages to keep family at the center of her life.”

Gerry Ortbals, of counsel, Bryan Cave

“Jane is an exceptional governmental strategist. She is able to see all the moving parts of a situation, gather them up and put them together in a coherent manner. Jane is able to generate numerous solutions to solve complex problems with equanimity, and I am fortunate to have her working on our matters.”